Porter's Lodge at Huntingdon Cemetery

Porter's Lodge at Huntingdon Cemetery

Cemetery entrance lodge, built circa 1855 to the designs of Robert Hutchinson, architect to the Huntingdon Burial Board. The lodge was completed together with the associated Anglican and Nonconformist chapels complex. The Huntingdon Burial Board was established following the 1852 Burial Acts, which enabled public cemeteries to be constructed by publicly-funded Burial Boards. The building was unoccupied at the time of inspection in October 2007.

The lodge is constructed of pale Gault brick with ashlar stone dressings. The roof is plain red tile with a steep pitch. The gables are coped with moulded kneelers.

The building follows a U-shaped plan with the main frontage facing the cemetery access and single-storey service wings enclosing a small rear yard.

The entrance front comprises three bays and rises to a single storey with attics beneath a deep and steeply-pitched roof. The central doorway is enclosed within a prominent gabled timber-framed porch with a pointed arched entrance flanked by unglazed lancet lights. The arch spandrels are pierced by trefoils. The porch roof is steeply pitched with barge boards and curved braces decorating the gabled front. To the right of the entrance is a two-light window with shouldered heads, a central mullion and casement lights, above which sits a shallow relieving arch. To the left of the doorway is a single light window. A dog-toothed brick eaves course runs across the front. The tall central chimney has battered brickwork to its front and rear faces beneath a dentilled capping.

The right-hand gable features a canted bay window to the ground floor, a low two-light attic window and a narrow blind light at the gable apex. The left-hand gable has a three-light ground floor window, a two-light window above and a blind apex light.

A long single-storey service wing extends from the rear of the building, featuring a single two-light mullioned window. A short parallel wing on the cemetery side of the small rear yard has a single light window.

The building has undergone only minor late 20th-century alterations and remains little altered. It was designed to mark the entrance to the cemetery with dignity and restraint, without competing visually with the main chapel buildings. The lodge has group value with the Anglican and Nonconformist mortuary chapels complex at Huntingdon Cemetery.